My husband’s extended family is in baby making mode. I started making baby blankets for all the new babies in this latest crop. This is my 5th one in 4 years. I’m sure it won’t be the last. They are all unique.
This one is a pattern from Stephen West, Painting Honeycombs Blanket. I’m making the smaller version. I’m using smaller needles because the fabric is better using size 6US/4mm and this yarn. To compensate I cast on 10 more stitches (1 honeycomb) to keep it the same size.
I’m using Scheepjes Softfun yarn, which is 60% cotton and 40% acrylic. I bought the Jewel color pack, which is made up of 12 different colors in 20g balls. I added a yellow and orange to round out a rainbow. The background color is called ”Mist” which is just a hint of greyish white.
So far I’m zooming along knitting this. It’s easy tv knitting. I’ve knit a section with each color and it looks like I’ll have enough of the small balls to make 3 repeats of the colors. Yay! It will be a nice size then. My goal is to get it finished before the end of April. As you can tell from the fewer posts and less craft content, working has really cut into my fun time. 🙂
Oh yeah, I always like to post the back side of projects because, as a maker, the back side is always as interesting as the front.
This past week I finished the 12 recipe tea towels/wall hangings that I started in November. WHEW that felt good to get those off my plate. I hadn’t touched them in several weeks and in that time I had kind of forgotten how I made them so I spent more time ripping out than sewing for the first one. But after that it went smoothly and I finished them in 2 days.
I’ve decided not to trust them to the mail. They’d have to cross 2 countries and 5,000 miles and probably cost a fortune because they are heavy. I will take them with me the next time I visit my mom and mail them from there. Hopefully this Spring. Everyone will just have to wait!
AND I started a new sweater. This one is a cabled cardigan that I could really use in my wardrobe. This is my second winter after returning from California and I need more warm sweaters. This sweater is called Sandstone Peak, designed by Irina Anikeeva. I fell in love with it the second I saw it.
(c) Irina Anikeeva
I’m knitting it with Cascade 220, which I had in stash. The colorway is called “Galaxy” and it’s another one of those hard to capture colors. Most of the time it looks dark brown, but in some light it looks dark purple. On dark winter nights it’s just black and I need a neck light to knit.
The instructions have you knit this from the bottom up, seamless, then knit the sleeves in the round, then put them all together at the underarms and knit the yoke seamless. Well, you can guess from other posts that I am a fan of seams in such a garment so I’ve decided to knit each piece flat and seam it together. It just takes more teasing out of the pattern instructions, especially at the yoke, but so far it’s not too bad. The instructions are very clear and easy to follow, which makes it also easy to tear them apart and see the pieces separately. I added 1 stitch at each edge for a selvage for seaming. I’ve finished one sleeve and started the second.
My plan is to have this finished by the end of January, with plenty of winter left to enjoy it. I’ve also got some mittens queued up to start, and DB has asked for either a hat or gloves (he hasn’t decided yet), so plenty of knitting on the horizon.
And that’s my FO (finished object) and WIP (work in progress) for this week. I was hoping to post about my spinning project(s) but I’m not quite ready for that unveiling. Come back next week for some spinning experiments in color.
Despite the past couple of posts being all about sewing, there has been, and always is, knitting going on. I think I’ve had at least one project on needles since…. 1977? And before that always some kind of craft project in the works. Since I was very young. Anyway, here are the latest knitting projects.
It’s hard to believe, but even with this shoulder injury, I’ve finished six things so far this year (photo above)! I’m surprised myself. A sweater, a baby blanket, a pair of socks, a hat, a shawl, and a huge Shetland lace christening blanket.
I only have two things on my needles right now – a hat and a test knit for a friend that I really can’t talk about much. I can show you a bit of that project and a nice tip for changing skeins of yarn.
If you are knitting something with an edge that will always show, like a shawl, or cardigan where you are knitting the front edges at the same time as the rest of the sweater, or in any situation where an edge will not be hidden with a seam or picked up stitches, you want that edge to remain beautiful. You don’t want to see, anywhere near that edge, where a new yarn was started or ended. How do I do that?
You can see in this knitted piece (photo above) that the ends of new and old skeins begin and end inside the knitted edge. I knit with the old yarn to the end of the row, turn, and then knit back to the end of the edging section (in this case, 5 stitches). Then I add in the new yarn and continue knitting the row to the end. Turn and knit back all the way to the end of the row, passing by the point where the yarn was added in. Turn and knit to the yarn change point, 5 stitches in. Pick up the old yarn and continue down the row to the end. Turn and knit back to the end. Continue in this way for a few turns and then cut the old yarn (or when you run out of that skein, if your yarn estimation is good!). Continue knitting with the new yarn. In this way you can weave in the ends farther into the knitted piece where it won’t be seen and the edges remain perfect. Actually, if you are knitting with commercially dyed yarn with a matching dye lot number, you don’t need to do this back and forth exchange of skeins. Just start and end the skeins inside the edge. I knit with both skeins for a few turns because they are hand dyed and are not identical and I didn’t want a jarring change to be seen in the knitted fabric.
The other photo I can show you of this project is the pile of bobbins I’m using to knit the intarsia part of the design. Yes, it’s intricate and fiddly to get started, but once you are 10 rows into it, it’s less fiddly and starts to become automatic knitting. And the results are stunning, trust me. 😉 I hope to be finished in a couple of weeks to show you the FO.
As for the hat, I’m knitting this with Western Sky Knits Merino 17 in the color Cake. This is the softest yarn you’ll ever knit with, other than cashmere. And I’m sure it will pill less that cashmere. I’m knitting the pattern Musselburgh from Ysolda. This is going to be a double thickness hat. You start at the crown of the inside, knit to the bottom edge, keep knitting the same length to the shaping of the crown, then decrease to the outside crown point. You end up with a tube with rounded points at each end. Fold one end into the other and voila a double thick hat! I’m knitting this with 2.5mm needles with a gauge of 8.5 stitches/inch, which is smaller than the smallest gauge in the pattern. I just estimated how many stitches I’d need based on the other sizes/gauges given and also compared it with a few other hats I have. So far so good! It’s super easy tv watching knitting, even though my shoulder still can’t take very much of that. I hope to be finished before it snows.
Finally, I UNKNIT something this week.
Last year at Stitches West I bought yarn, Sincere Sheep Cormo Worsted, with the advice from the lovely Yarniacs. I bought 6 skeins thinking it would be plenty for a sweater. I knit Foldlines, by Norah Gaughan. I love the pattern. I love the yarn. Unfortunately I made the 42″ size for a boxy fit (which ended up being 45″ with my gauge) and I didn’t have enough yarn for long sleeves. I hardly wore this sweater because 3/4 sleeves with a worsted weight sweater just didn’t work for me. I needed a warm sweater, which needs long sleeves. So, again with sage advice from the Yarniacs, I decided to frog the whole thing and I will reknit it in a smaller size and will have enough yarn for long sleeves. It took me all day yesterday, painstakingly pulling out the seams and woven in ends, to unravel it and now I have 660g of balled up yarn.
Next I need to skein it up for washing before I can think about starting to knit it again. Along with a couple of other sweaters I’m looking forward to starting. Without hurting my shoulder again.
Despite the warm weather, there is knitting going on. Every day. With wool.
The above is my Hosta, which is a little over half way finished. I have 2 ~115 gram skeins of worsted weight yarn and when they are done, I’m done. This is one of Nancy’s patterns and it’s really addictive knitting. It’s easier than it looks, really, and it looks pretty impressive. I love brioche!
I’m knitting this for 2 KALs. Yes, double dipping! KAL 1 is the Yarniacs Colors of Fall 2013 KAL where you are supposed to use the design colors for this Fall, as ordained by Pantone. KAL 2 is the Twist and Shout KAL on the Madelinetosh Lovers forum. For this one you have 2 choices – you can knit anything you want in Madelinetosh DK Twist yarn, OR, knit with any Madelinetosh yarn using a pattern from Twist Collective. Nancy’s Hosta appeared in Twist Collective in Fall 2011 and I had this yarn on hand, so that’s what I went with. I’m determined not to buy any more yarn for a long while (undyed yarn exempted, cuz I need something to dye!).
The other thing I’m working on is Dahlia. This thing has been a WIP for almost 2 years! The center lace section was pretty interesting, but the rest of the stockinette was just so boring. I put it down a couple of times and picked it up again in July because I hate having WIPs. Either finish or frog is my philosophy. Yesterday I finished the second front piece and sewed the lace center to the knitted back sections. At this point it’s a big rectangle.
The red lines on either side of the lace is where the sleeves will go. I’ll take out that red yarn, pick up the stitches, and start knitting the sleeves in the round from there outwards. There are little lace motifs at the cuffs of the sleeves too, which will hopefully keep me from stabbing my eyes out from boredom. I am determined to get this thing done in the next 4-6 weeks. The yarn is Pashmina, Madelinetosh of course, and luscious to work with.
I also have 2, yes TWO, other projects going. One is a pair of socks for DB. One sock is finished. The second sock is about 2 inches underway. It’s a long term thing. It’s too hot now for them anyway.
Finally, I’m working on a new design that is nearly done. At least the version in my size is nearly done. The back piece is soaking right now. The front is already done. A little sewing and some ribbing and I can see if it fits as I intend it to fit or not. If so, I will go ahead and grade the rest of the sizes and get on with knitting a second one and seeing about some test knitters. It’s a slow process, but I get there in the end.
And that’s my knitting! Lots on the needles, making progress, keeping an eye on my shoulders and hands so as not to cause RSI injury. I’ll keep you posted on progress.
Under Dutch Skies 